"I--I can't tell you all I was thinking," she said. "But some of it was because of Iron Skull. I was thinking how awful it will be for us to die, you and Sara and me, leaving not a human being behind us, just as Iron Skull did." "Most of us New Englanders are going that way," said Jim. "We Americans have so steadily decreased our birth rate in the past hundred years that we are nearly seven million babies below normal. South European children will take their places." "Well, I don't know that it will hurt America in the long run," said Pen. "I think it will," insisted Jim. "This country is governed by institutions that are inherently Teutonic. The people who will inherit these institutions are fundamentally different in their conceptions of government and education. I'm a New Englander, descendant of the Anglo-Saxon founders of the country. I can't see my race and its ideal passing without its breaking my heart." "Why do you pass?" asked Pen sharply. "Why don't you brace up?" "We don't know how," said Jim. "I wonder if that's true," murmured Pen, "and if it is true, why!" Silence fell between the two. The night wind sighed softly over the Elephant's broad back. The eagle, disturbed by the voices above his nest, soared suddenly from the crater, dipped across the canyon, and circled the flag that was seldom lowered before the office. The flag fluttered remotely in the moonlight. "Look, Jim," whispered Pen, "the eagle and the flag so young and the Elephant so old and poor Iron Skull lying there dead! I wish I could make a legend from it. The material is there.... Oh, Sara said such horrible things tonight!" Penelope shivered. Jim jumped up and held out his hand. "Come, little Pen! I'm going to take you home. How cold your fingers are!" Jim kept Pen's cold little hand warm within his own whenever the trail permitted on the way back. But he scarcely spoke again. The next day Iron Skull's funeral was held in the little adobe chapel which was filled to overflowing. A great crowd of workmen, Americans, Mexicans and Indians, gathered outside. At Suma-theek's earnest petition, Jim allowed the Indians to carry the coffin on their shoulders up the trail behind the lower town to the mesa crest where the little graveyard lay. And Jim also gave Suma-theek permission to make a farewell speech when the grave had been filled. The missionary had protested but Jim was obdurate. "Suma-theek owes his life to Iron Skull. I shall let him do his uttermost to show his gratitude. He is a fine old man, as fine in the eyes of God, no doubt, as you or I, Mr. Smiley." So as the last of the sand and gravel was being shoveled into the grave, the old Apache stepped forward and raised his lean brown hand.